In a recent interview on “CBS Mornings,” Jon Stewart, gearing up for his return to hosting Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” revealed that Apple had axed his previous talk show, “The Problem With Jon Stewart.”
Stewart claimed Apple’s decision stemmed from concerns about potentially controversial content. During the April 1 episode of “The Daily Show,” Stewart delved deeper into Apple’s apprehensions regarding the direction of his former show and its associated podcast.
Stewart revealed to Federal Trade Commission head Lina Khan during their “The Daily Show” appearance that he had previously tried to get her to appear as a guest on the podcast “The Problem.” Apple allegedly objected to Stewart inviting Khan to speak on the show because the FTC investigated the monopolistic behavior of tech companies.
Stewart remarked, “I wanted to have you on a podcast and Apple asked us not to do it. They literally said, ‘Please don’t talk to her.’”
Stewart even went so far as to claim that Apple forbade him from discussing the dangers of artificial intelligence on his show. He referred to a nearly 15-minute segment Stewart had done earlier in the show in which he decried the rise of AI and discussed how it is rendering human workers obsolete when he remarked, “They wouldn’t let us do even that dumb thing we just did in the first act on AI.”
“Like, what is that sensitivity?” Stewart inquired about Apple. “Why are they so afraid to even have these conversations out in the public sphere?”
Khan answered, “I think it just shows the danger of what happens when you concentrate so much power and so much decision making in a small number of companies.”
As part of a multi-year first-look agreement he inked with the streaming division of the tech giant, Stewart made his Apple series premiere in 2021. Episodes of the show aired every two weeks during its first season before moving to a weekly schedule for the second.
Every episode of “The Problem” featured Stewart delving into a different subject. The streamer declared in October of last year that a third season of Stewart’s show will not be produced.
Also Read: Apple & Google Discuss iPhone AI Integration
